[4-8] The Yacht

[Deadpool]

Deadpool never heard the gunshot (in his line of business there used to be a saying—if a gun goes off and you don't hear it. . . well then, you're the lucky man). All he heard was the dull sound of his back slamming into the wall behind him; if not for the wall, it would have been the inner ringing sound of his head bouncing off the deck of the yacht. Now he resembled a man too drunk to stand, rather than the swaggering know-it-all who unreasonably took the aggressive. His knees trembled in a plea to unburden themselves from the weight of his tiring body as he pulled away from the wall and slouched forward, head buried under his clavicles.

Karl Jak sauntered forward. He was a person accustomed to the good life, but wielded the powerful firearm with a disturbing lack of effort—it took Deadpool years to properly one-hand shoot a desert eagle. The barrel of his desert eagle gleamed while he held it level at the mercenary. Luck had nothing to do with the placement of his shot; along with the playful kiss, Karl meant to send a message—don't take on a situation that your ass can't handle (something Karl probably learned firsthand, in some capacity or another).

Across the room, Deadpool's partner tussled with Pepsiman in a war of who would stand first; they jostled for positioning until the giant advertisement managed to wrap his arms around Guilmon's tail. The reptilian let out a whimpering sound as Pepsiman dismounted him. He tried everything he could—his claws were even dug into the wooden deck, carving trails into floor—but still found himself tossed aside like inconvenient luggage.

“We're going to do things my way now, Wade.” The smoothness in Karl's voice diminished into a dry and exasperated seriousness. Deadpool felt the cold steel of the handcannon pressing on the top of his head. “Pick your head up.”

”Who are you?” the mercenary drawled through his exhaustion. He groaned while collecting the strength for his words. ”The real Karl Jak matches his wardrobe—he's meticulous about it. The real Karl Jak would have been more flirtatious with me! I'm wearing goddamn spandex, so I know this print is knocking your socks off.”

The executive snickered. He slid the gun down Deadpool's temple and cheek, grazing it along his jawline before bringing it to his chin, using the end of the barrel to prop the mercenary's head up. When their eyes met Karl softened his visage; a smile curled under his thin mustache and wrinkles arched over his rising brows.

“The real Karl Jak is a trend setter; not a trend follower.” He surveyed Deadpool's physique. “And the real Karl Jak knows that under that tight spandex you wear is a body riddled with cancer, from your face to your 'spectacular' print.”

”Then who—”

“I'm the guy with the desert eagle, that's who I am.” Karl interrupted. “You fucked up a good thing, do you know that? We could have been drinking cocktails right now, as we headed towards the lighthouse.”

”What's at the lighthouse?”

“You ask a lot of questions for someone who claims to know all the answers,” Karl quipped. “How's everything over there?” he raised his voice for Pepsiman to hear, but never peeled his eyes from Deadpool.

“I believe our guest is parched, and is in need of more thirst quenching Pepsi,” his partner replied. He stood over Guilmon, watching as the reptile went from one knee to both feet.

Deadpool began to laugh; it sounded like car struggling to start. ”Know what neither you nor the real Karl have?” He stared into the pits of Karl's blue eyes and winked. ”A Pokemon.”

The executive furrowed a brow. He reciprocated the deep gaze with one of his own, attempting to read whatever delusional thoughts were juggling around in the mercenary's mind. “A Pokemon?” he

”Yup,” the mercenary replied. A confident smile creased his mask, and he glanced towards his partner. “Charmander there is gonna Flamethrower your ass once I command him to do so. All it takes is a couple directional clicks, and one A-button mash.”

Guilmon felt Funnymon's eyes beam towards him. They were burning, but not in the familiar way. No, the fire he saw was a blazed confidence. The words he spoke were, as always, pretty hard for the digimon to understand, but it was clear Funnymon no longer wanted to be funny.

Karl caught a chuckle before it ran up his throat. “You're really losing your mind Wade,” he remarked, turning his head to smile at Guilmon. “That's not a Poke—“

The mercenary's eyes began to rise with delight. He observed Karl's head turn from him as if through a series of frames, each only a fraction of a second long; and right when the executive's head went parallel to his shoulder, Deadpool saw his moment. He remembered Mr. Miyagi's teachings, how martial arts revolved around the basics. The legend had never taught him personally, but over a collection of movies Deadpool felt like he did. ”Wax on!” he shouted.

His left arm swiveled at the elbow, rotating around and striking the executive's wrist. The gun in his hand popped into the air; it twirled head over butt. In his mixture of anger and surprise, Karl responded could only respond with a grunt.

Wax off!”

This time he didn't steal a page from the master (it was just cool to say). A fist rocketed forward from his bullet-hole shoulder. The executive went to parry with a backpedal, but the maneuver failed; Deadpool's right cross pounded into his cheek, sending him into a punch-drunk stagger across the cabin.

”What're you waiting for?” the mercenary barked. Guilmon felt his eyes beam towards him once again. ”Get to fighting, or I'll kill you personally.”

Like Guilmon noticed before me, the site's word count doesn't resemble my personal word count. I just starting paying attention to it; by my personal count this post is 977 words, but the site says 1046.